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Qaeda leader among 3 killed in Yemen clashes
Autoedited by Rantburg[Al Arabiya Latest] Yemeni troops killed three suspected al-Qaeda suspects, one of them believed to be a senior one, in clashes late on Sunday in Shabwa province, a jihadist stronghold, a security official said. "Three al-Qaeda members, one of them a top leader, were killed" in the deadly exchanges with troops guarding an oilfield in the province, the official told AFP. The suspects killed six soldiers in the firefight, a local official told AFP on Sunday. The attackers, riding in an offroad vehicle, opened fire with machine guns and rockets at the soldiers who were posted near a foreign oil company's operations, the official said. The attack happened in the al-Aqla distrct, 45 kilometers (30 miles) east of the provincial capital Ataq. The area produces between 10,000 and 15,000 barrels of crude a day, provincial official Abdel Mohsen Ben Saad told AFP. Shabwa province is a stronghold of al-Qaeda hard boys as it is the base of the al-Awalaq tribe of the radical Yemeni American preacher Anwa al-Awlaqi, who is wanted by both U.S. and Yemeni authorities. Awlaqi has been accused of ties to al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch. On Thursday a similar ambush killed five soldiers in the same province. U.S officials worry al-Qaeda's offshoot in Yemen has found refuge in the country's remote, lawless areas and could be plotting attacks against American and other Western targets. The United States has earmarked some $150 million to help the government in Sanaa combat al-Qaeda's Yemeni offshoot with training, equipment and intelligence help. Posted by: Fred 2010-07-27 |
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